Hi all,
I would like to put out the pieces–the little magnetized iron filings that are collecting around some lodestone I can’t quite see yet–for the group’s consideration. (Is this metaphor working?) Like Rhodes, I have a great deal of respect for the power of collective imagining.
Breaking what has been put before us by the Universe into smaller manageable pieces, these parts emerge for me:
–Freeman and Nina
Freeman has been both my friend and hero for many decades. His contribution to the fields of applied bioregionalism and its mate, restoration, is assuming size and shape in retrospect. Freeman did most of his work–as author, as restoration guru, as executive director–at a time when it was a mark of distinction to get a salary, much less benefits. I can’t help but see an analogy between black housemaids in the fifties and this situation; in retrospect, we see that a wrong must be righted.
Freeman deserves a pension for the work he did during his professional lifetime to bring us to this place. As I said at the celebration MRC hosted earlier in November, “10,000 watershed organizations have arisen from the seeds he broadcast.” (Alli Freedlund is putting together a compilation of the praise poured out that night.)
While I think it is fitting and just that fundraising for that pension begin with us, the next circle out to make this appeal is with the restoration community. I have done some groundwork and am willing to work with a small group to assemble permission to use those lists for a larger crowdfunding appeal to that group of professionals.
Freeman and Nina’s house in Petrolia
I feel a bit foolish making plans for another family, but Laurel and Angeline and Nina have invited us to do so. Our financial counsellor has said that Nina needs a tax attorney. Also he said that two vehicles for the house include Charitable Remainder Trusts and Qualified Terminable Interest Trusts. I am out of my depth there but will research these terms for our small group meeting December 5. I think a good tax attorney to advise and set up an appropriate long term solution to keep the house (even while renting it) might cost as much as $5000, starting with advice and ending with a document that works.
I have always seen the scale and design of that house suggesting that at some point in the future, the house be owned and operated by some larger not for profit as a retreat center, library, and think tank. Who could Diggerbread collaborate with to be part of such a group? Solange and Russell know a score of folks in their generation who are sitting in seats of power now; David Simpson, as one of the eminence gris of his/our generation, and Freeman’s partner in many of these ventures, also knows who to speak with. Would you put on your thinking caps to suggest possible partners?
Freeman and Nina plans to move to the Bay Area
Again, this is getting even more intimate and yet at this point, Nina would like to live in the Bay Area, near or with (a three gen household like ours) Laurel and Obah and the baby. It would spread care for Freeman around to a wider group and Nina would not feel so isolated.
A short term rental in Oakland or Petaluma or El Sobrante is going to mean first, last and deposit. I’m thinking $3-4000 plus the cost of moving, another $500-1000. Let’s call it $5000.
Whatever we raise to give Freeman and Nina a start on the next phase of their lives can be used to raise funds in the next circle, the restoration community of colleagues. We could ask that community for a match.
–Beyond Freeman and Nina
Benevolent Society
Who sent Peter and I a copy of the Hadassah Women’s Benevolent Society for helping to care for the widow and elder? We like that model a lot. Diggerbread should have an invested fund to appeal to in circumstances like Freeman and Nina’s. Already, people who could use some additional support are being identified.
Ventures
Benevolent Societies and buying land for building Eco-Villages require an ongoing source of income.
Our imagination is the limit here and, as we have ably demonstrated in the past, we are a group with a powerful collective and individual imagination.
Because of my history in consumer goods over my adult life, I am attracted to value-added product. Michael Agniello/Tierra and my oldest daughter Gilian also have extensive experience in this area of consumer packaged good, as they are known in the industry. I haven’t followed all of you: who else has this kind of experience?
We have land that is underutilized. Can anything be grown in those places that doesn’t require daily attention? Could we–like MRC–offer a local employment program to those People whose sole source of employment is the underground economy?
I capitalize People because I mean to refer to both people of our ilk, people who have thrown their hats into the ring in the counterculture and could use a hand up, other than growing pot. I also mean our indigenous brothers and sisters who are too often un or underemployed.
Here’s an example: value-added means taking a raw material, like angelica or ginseng, or waste material like grape seed, whey or pulp, and creating a product or products wanted and needed in the marketplace. Having a laboratory where the necessary product development can take place, together with a small manufacturing and bottling facility, could produce the funds that would lift all our boats on the same tide.
These are all my thoughts at this point, which I offer to the collective imagination to expand.
Love and affection,
Destiny
510-701-8909
In the interest of transparency:
http://www.reinhabitory-institute.org
http://www.sitiotiempopress.net
I am astonished and thrilled by the oversized response we have gotten to our first tentative posts.
destinykinal 